


The world is ending (but my whole world is you)

by Eturni



Series: My world is ending [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Fluff, I cannot stress enough how unhappily this ends, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mass Murder, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley, No happy ending here, Second chapter actually has a beta because pacing is hard, What do you call terrorism against Heaven and Hell?, because technically that, guys check the tags this is not a happy story, reference to a bullet wound, suicide by archangel, technically open to interpretation on the ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-19 19:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19979650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eturni/pseuds/Eturni
Summary: Based onthis absolutely heartbreaking art by Millerizoon tumblrCrowley always seems to know when his angel is in trouble. He always saves him, except for the incident of the burning bookshop. He tries not to think about that. But what happens if Heaven decides to take its revenge and, for once, Crowley is just not fast enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Say it again](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/501655) by Millerizo. 



> I teared up reading the comic, I cried writing this and I'm hoping to take as many of you with me as I can.
> 
> Sections in italics indicate a memory. Hopefully it flows well enough to make sense but please comment if things get a little lost.

It was 10 minutes until the end of the world:

And Crowley was fussing over his appearance, stomach tight with nerves he’d deny until his last breath. This was an extraordinarily long time for an immortal being whose corporation didn’t actually need to breathe.

It was also 8 months, 3 weeks and 6 days since Armageddo-Not-Today-Thank-You. Crowley had wasted no time in getting back on the ‘our side, run away with me, anything for you angel’ horse and as such was due to pick Aziraphale up for dinner at a small sushi restaurant the other favoured. It didn’t hurt that the place also had excellent sake.

Crowley was raising an eyebrow at himself in the mirror and trying to decide if he should leave his belt as it was or let it sit casually askew when something insidious prickled its way up the back of his neck. It settled into the back of his brain with an almost snakelike hiss. It was the same sense of unease that had drawn him to the Bastille, forced him bodily into a church in the war, led him desperately towards a burning bookshop.

He was in his car, phone in hand calling Aziraphale in a space of time too quick for a human’s mind to register. The tightness in his stomach from before was now the knot of some terrible beast twisting over itself and doing its best to turn into a clawing, mind numbing panic. This felt too familiar. Too soon. Crowley ruthlessly pushed back against it, tried to think of other things even as the phone continued to ring unanswered. Panic roared and thrashed as it tried to rise in his throat and Crowley only pushed down harder. There was no reason for it. He was being paranoid. But there’d been fire everywhere.

He set the phone ringing again and thought of how fine Aziraphale would definitely be. The better things that had happened in the Bentley.

_Aziraphale’s grip was white knuckled around the console of the Bentley as some poor soul on the street just barely managed a miraculous leap back onto the pavement away from the speeding vehicle._

_Crowley grinned at him from behind dark glasses, not bothering to really watch the road. The Bentley knew better than to stray off to road, after all. For all of the fuss about his driving Aziraphale had rarely opted to walk rather than being driven around._

_Aziraphale turned to him and his grin only grew when the angel bit his lip nervously, watching the flesh trapped between teeth. “Crowley please watch the road.” He begged. Crowley rolled his eyes but did turn front and centre. “I love you but you_ do _go too fast for me.” The angel sighed with relief._

_Crowley almost rear-ended the car in front. “What?!”  
_

“ _Eyes on the road Crowley!”_

“ _Ssssay that again, angel.”_

“ _What? Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I know how much you hate me talking about your speeding habits.” Aziraphale pursed his lips, fussing at his hands in his lap._

“ _No… The other thing angel.” Crowley pressed, taking his foot off the pedal just a little. Give both of them some breathing room as his heart pounded in his head._

“ _Ah, yes. I do love you.” Aziraphale smiled perhaps a little nervously, turning the full, soft force of it on the demon._

_He had to pull over until he figured out how to speak again._

It was 3 minutes until the end of the world.

Crowley screeched the Bentley to a stop in the spot that was always miraculously clear when he arrived. There was no raging inferno, no crime scene. No sign of anything out of place. Crowley wished that it did anything to calm the desperate animal trying to claw its way up through his throat.

The shop was closed. This was not unusual. It opened easily under Crowley’s hand. This was only mildly confusing for the door that had been fairly certain it was locked but was also used to being confused when this particular occult being approached.

Crowley slammed the door closed behind him. “Aziraphale? Bit early, you ready?” He called out, willing his voice not to waver.

Everything looked fine, perfectly in place. Books still in absolutely no discernible order, furniture still ridiculously tartan and well worn and spotless. But there was the sense of something cold and ethereal here, not the normal warmth of his angel. It was something that shouldn’t be leaving that unease that Crowley never, ever felt in Aziraphale’s shop. This was one of the safest places in existence for him. This was where he was invariably happiest. He distractedly ran a hand over one of the sofas as he headed towards the back room.

_Crowley was laid back, head resting in Aziraphale’s lap as the angel ran deft, comforting fingers through his hair. He was pleasantly buzzed from good food and better wine but he was, as always, more warm and off guard just for the fact of the other’s undivided attention on him._

“ _Hey angel?”_

“ _Hmm?” Aziraphale blinked back to reality from where he’d completely lost himself. Looking at Crowley. It made the demon’s chest constrict with warmth._

“ _Could you say that thing again?”_

“ _I love you.” Crowley expected a beaming smile, or perhaps one of Aziraphale’s more devious smirks if he was going to use the evidence of him being soft against him later. Instead the smile was warm, with the confidence of millennia of love and understanding._

_Crowley could feel the heat on his face and the absolutely stupid lovesick smile he knew he must have. But what did it matter? Alone in the shop with Aziraphale and no sides left to speak of everyone else could go hang._

“ _Again.” He whispered._

“ _I love you.” The smile turned bright and affectionate._

“ _Again!” The demon demanded biting his lips together and trying to hide a delight that wouldn’t be contained._

“ _I love you!” Aziraphale declared, pushing up Crowley’s glasses so that he could look into his over bright eyes._

“ _One last time?” Crowley reached up and placed a tentative hand to his angel’s cheek, revelling in the warmth there._

“ _Crowley, as many times as you want. I” Aziraphale leaned in, kissing at the snake tattoo “love” his lips moved along Crowley’s jaw, enjoying the slight shiver he got in return. “you.” Aziraphale pulled Crowley closer still, letting their lips meet in a lazy kiss that knew it had the privilege of all the time in the world on it’s side._

It was 2 and a half minutes until the end of the world.

Crowley paused on the threshold to the back room, throat closing up as the howling of the panic in him overcame his brain’s attempts to process the scene in front of him. The window was shattered, a few books strewn across the floor where they’d been toppled for their position as fingers scrambled for purchase.

And there, in the midst of it, Aziraphale on the floor, eyes glassy with pain barely seeing as Crowley entered the room, rushing to his side.

“Aziraphale? What happened? _Shit_ what’s going on?” He quickly looked over the angel, hands trembling so much he could barely grab his jacket enough to push it out of the way.

Aziraphale whimpered in pain, teeth trying to grit against it. His hand came up, slow and uncertain, and pressed up against his ribs.

Crowley desperately took Aziraphale’s hand in his, squeezing it between them and feeling sick as he carefully pulled it away. There was a small hole there, just below the heart, steadily leaking blood that wasn’t nearly as celestial looking as it should.

“Shit, okay. I’m going to fix this.” Crowley croaked, lacing his fingers firmly with Aziraphale’s and squeezing, though he didn’t know who he was comforting more.

_Fingers lacing with fingers. A faint squeeze out in the open, in St James’ park, just because he can now._

_Crowley and Aziraphale sat at the same park bench they always haunted, watching the world pass by with all the indifference of any couple who couldn’t see anything outside of the two of them. Aziraphale had moved first, always a shock, and taken his hand, shuffling close enough that Crowley could feel the heat from shoulder to hip to knee right down his right side. He had to bite down on his tongue to not grin._

“ _Could you say it again?” He asked, shuffling until he was all angles again but never breaking the contact of their hands._

“ _I love you.” Aziraphale smiled, bringing their twinned hands up to brush a kiss against Crowley’s fingers._

It was 2 minutes until the end of the world.

Crowley took in a deep, shaking breath and snapped his fingers, demonic energy surging in the air.

Aziraphale let out a cry of pain, blood bubbling up through the wound as something sparked under the flesh with cold, Heavenly light.

Crowley almost scrambled back but his body wouldn’t let him move away from his angel, even if it blinded him. “No, no, no. What’s wrong? What happened? What do I _do_?” The demon could quickly feel all traces of composure leaving him, blood rushing away from his face so quickly he thought his corporation might faint on him.

He felt a gentle squeeze of his hand, too soft, and looked up to the angel’s face, surprised to find the image shimmering with the prickle behind his eyes. “My dear” the voice had a wet wheeze that made Crowley feel like the floor had dropped out from under him. Like Falling but worse. “I think this is it.”

“No, you can’t. They won’t give you another body.”

“Feels mortal. Feels… more.” Aziraphale struggled to get enough breath into the body to speak.

Crowley felt similar. “ _No._ ” He demanded, grip too tight on Aziraphale’s hand but the other didn’t even grimace.

“It’s down to the soul. Gabriel.” Aziraphale wheezed and Crowley thought he was going to throw up. Or pass out. Or burn everything around him.

What could he even do against something protected from his miracles?

Anathema. The witch wasn’t truly ethereal or occult. Silly girl had to have something. He reached into his pocket, hand slick with blood and fumbled to unlock his phone with a shaking hand. He didn’t dare remove the other from his angel’s? Anathema was suddenly in his contacts, a number his phone shouldn’t know. It was one that Aziraphale’s phone knew, however. And despite the generational gap it did what it could to make sure that Crowley got exactly what he needed. Aziraphale had kept in quite close contact with the others after Armagedidn’t after all.

_Aziraphale was stood in the back room on the ancient phone that Crowley swore was just backwards enough to be coming back into fashion with hipsters. He gave Crowley a quick, welcoming wave as he asked about some new divining ritual or something._

_Crowley wasn’t listening, he was grinning deviously at his angel from across the room. “Say it again for me.”_

_Aziraphale glowered at the demon, mouthing his name over the top of the receiver as though scandalised. It didn’t mask the pleased glint in his angel’s eyes._

“ _You said, any time I needed it.” He leaned against the bookshelf nearest to him with his hip cocked out at an angle designed to show he was challenging Aziraphale._

_The angel sighed as though completely put out. “I love you.” It was no less thrilling the hundredth time than it had been the first. “Hmm? Oh no, not you Anathema. Just a particularly clingy...” He trailed off, looking down at the phone in his hand wryly. “Why yes, just that actually.”_

It was less than a minute until the end of the world.

Aziraphale’s breaths were coming shallower and Crowley was biting back a scream when the line finally picked up. “Yes! Angel, stay with me! Anathema, what do you do with a magically treated weapon? It’s lodged in there and I can’t heal him!”

“What? Is that Crowley? What’s-”

Crowley’s wings flared out of his back as he lost most semblances of control, desperate to do anything to protect his angel. “No time!” He hissed, desperately. “How do I get it out? Or neutralise it? He’s bleeding out!”

“I don’t know. I’ll look through what I have. What’s happening?” Anathema finally sounded worried enough for Crowley. He disregarded anything that wasn’t an answer for him.

“Move fast! And you stay with me. You’re not going anywhere.” His voice landed somewhere between a snarl and a hiss. His eyes stung, the heat of tears over his cheeks burning like holy water.

Aziraphale looked up at him and even beyond the cloud of pain Crowley could see the unmistakable undertone of pity there. Of a deep sorrow. “Not enough… time.” He sighed out.

Crowley bit his cheek hard enough to draw blood. “No! Stay with me! I… say it again. You promised.” There was the faint edge of hysteria and Crowley couldn’t find it in him to care.

Aziraphale’s lips twitched up in the best smile he could manage and he reached up, slow and painful, to touch Crowley’s cheek. The demon gripped hold of it, pressed it against the wetness of his cheek. “I love you.” The sound was barely there, like being passed through a sea of stars to reach him.

Crowley’s wings wrenched with a sob that racked his whole body. “I love you too. You have to stay.” He begged, watching with terror as the faint light behind Aziraphale’s eyes dimmed further and further.

“Move faster!” He roared, not even sure where the phone was any more as he clung to Aziraphale’s hand in his. As the angel lost the strength to hold it on his own.

It went limp in his hand and the noise that whined from the pit of Crowley’s soul wasn’t human. “Aziraphale, no. Say it again.” He clutched at the hand in his, tears dripping through the space between them. The silence that answered him was somehow louder than a hurricane in his own head.

“Please say it again, I’m _begging_ you-”

The world ended inside the circle of his arms and Crowley couldn’t even find the breath to scream.


	2. Was it Hell or High Water that broke our hearts?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley's response to losing Aziraphale, including the immediate fallout, a couple of months worth of planning and a modicum of revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is technically dedicated to (and the sole fault of) Memprime who asked the muses of pain to visit me to see how this revolved for Crowley.  
> The chapter title is from Hell or High Water by Passenger and if you want to really get punched in the gut it was one of the songs I used to help kneecap my mood far enough for inspiration.

The next time Crowley is aware of anything there are hands gently trying to pry the husk of Aziraphale’s corporation from his arms, gentle but insistent.

He pulled the form closer, a jealous, protective snarl rippling from his lips. _No. He’s mine. I die with him._ The hands finally left him and he settled back over the body, the steady trickle of wetness down his cheeks somehow still not stopped. In any other situation he’d be mortified to be found so weak but there wasn’t even a hint of the urge to posture that he’d always had before.

The husk in his arms was cold and blank where it should be warm and full of a radiance that Heaven could only have hoped to hold a candle to. He pulled back just enough to look into glassy eyes and there was a noise from somewhere in the room, that may have been from his own chest, as he pressed a hand to the husk’s cheek and waited for the strike to come.

Instead minutes passed and eventually a small white mug,  with delicate angel wings where a handle should be,  was  gently levered into his field of vision. This time he knew the wounded inhuman noise came from hi m as he clutched around the boiling mug and brought it back ready to launch against the wall at the  _cruelty_ of taunting him with that.

_The first time Aziraphale wandered through the bookshop with that mug Crowley had ended up teasing him so mercilessly that he was banned for several months. They each carried little signifiers of their offices like a tongue in cheek uniform but there was something ridiculously kitschy about the mug that Crowley found he couldn’t let drop._

_Two months after the not-apocalypse, with Crowley spending more time than ever at the shop, Aziraphale had brought him out a tea in a matching black cup. The demon had, naturally, immediately started teasing Aziraphale, asking if he’d also picked out his and his towels for the bathroom._

_When Aziraphale sniffed haughtily and offered to take the mug away and dispose of it Crowley snatched it close and wrapped himself around it with a broad grin that Aziraphale would claim to be endearing and that anyone with a death wish might call dopey. “Hell no, this is mine now. Didn’t say I wouldn’t use it.”_

_Aziraphale settled in next to him with a sigh that tried far too hard to sound exasperated and Crowley threw a long leg over the other as his grin finally settled into something very smug and proud of itself. He flipped absently through a copy of_ The Satanic Verses _while Aziraphale settled into one of his Wildes. He had to stop after a little while, feeling like he was a bit too sober to fully appreciate the damned mysticism angle._

_He gave it up as a bad job and placed the book carefully on the side before shuffling a little closer to Aziraphale and wrapping himself around his warm mug and his warm love in equal parts._

Crowley  felt the burning liquid in the mug across his chest and shoulder, coating his fingers and hand but he suddenly f ound that he c ouldn’ t go through with letting go of it. That he d id n’t really know what would happen if he watched that shatter over Aziraphale’s beloved books until it matched the pieces Crowley had been reduced to.

The change in perspective at least brought him enough into the present to recognise the slightly recoiled figure in front of him,  all old fashioned rustic sensibilities. It took him a moment to recognise them as familiar but when he went to talk his voice only came out in a vague croak.

“I…” Anathema looked a little bit stunned. She’d spent the entire drive to London running through scenarios and mentally preparing for what occult support might be needed. Even after Crowley’s radio silence and preparing for the worst this isn’t quite what she’d imagined.

Crowley’s jaw worked again and she tried to give him room to speak but instead his head dropped back down to what had been Aziraphale. The demon roughly searched out for a few moments before gesturing limply, a pair of sunglasses in his hand and being fitted onto his face. Single handed, so that he could still hold onto what was left of the angel.

“What do you need me to do? Do we need to fix this one up so we can summon him back to it?” There was a strain to Anathema’s voice.

It was almost enough for Crowley to forgive her a truly stupid question. She was only human. But what did this fucking look like? And the words only drove the sharp edge of the truth deeper into his ribs. No. There was no fixing this. There was no new corporation and no convenient out. “ Stupid little girl. You’ve done enough here.” He hissed, raising his head to glower at the mortal witch from behind his glasses.

Anathema did, wisely, take a good three seconds to be rightfully concerned and compose herself before wading in again. She  _had_ voluntarily walked towards the apocalypse to help stop it after all. “ I’ll be here when there’s something I can do then. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Well you’re too fucking late.” Crowley croaked, an odd sort of anger boiling up in him, caustic and desperate to get her out and away. This was his. She wasn’t part of this, no matter how fond Aziraphale had been of her. With his little visits over to Tadfield and little tea and cake afternoons and always, always chattering about prophecies.

He very suddenly wondered if there’d been anything in Agnes Nutter’s second volume that would have saved Aziraphale this. He very suddenly  wanted to gut the living heart from her. “You burned it. He would have  _begged you_ for it.” Crowley found himself shaking the body in his arms, or maybe it was him trembling, the air around him thickening with oppressive power. “A first edition you didn’t want and you burned it and it might have  _saved him_ but you were so fucking certain that if you didn’t have it no one else should.” 

Anathema kept her voice impressively level even as she shuffled her way around the edge of the shop and towards the door. “I don’t… That’s not the way it worked. She never-”

“He would have _loved_ it and you _burned_ it!” Crowley finally looked up, eyes dead on her though she hadn’t seen him tracking her at all.

“Look, it was never...” The occultist snapped her mouth shut, feeling that reasoned arguing with a slightly unhinged demon probably wasn’t the best thing in this situation and that getting out was the best thing that she could do. A threatening hiss followed her out onto the street and she was very thankful that Newt and Dick Turpin hadn’t been able to get parked anywhere close to the shop. She very determinedly jogged-not-ran the entire way even though she felt the press of that accusing energy leave her somewhere around the Palladium.

Crowley was once again aware of the passage of time, thanks to Anathema and her unwanted concern and her damned sympathy and fuck if she wasn’t the only one in Heaven, Earth or Hell that cared that the heart of the world had stopped beating.

Things went quiet in Crowley’s head for the first few days and he gained enough composure to finally send his wings away and admit that there was no more that could be done. He contacted Anathema for her help and very carefully did not mention an apology or anything about his behaviour in the shop. Hoping to avoid a repeated volatile performance Anathema dutifully let it be as well.

The numbness that it left Crowley with was a pressure right across his skin that made everything slow. Made everything take so much energy.

When they removed the bullet the body had finally fully discorporated into strands of ethereal energy. Anathema guided him to a chair when his legs suddenly forgot how to hold him up and time once again slipped away from him. Anathema bustled about the shop, Newt occasionally popping his head nervously around the door when he came to take her away for sleep or lunch or whatever else it was that she should be doing instead of playing witch in a dead angel’s book shop. Hearing her talk was like listening to the world from under water, distorted and far away and it took focus he could barely muster to let her pull him to the surface occasionally.

She wasn’t nearly as good as Aziraphale or near so much of an infuriatingly lovable bastard but she had a similar bookish energy and for whatever reason she really did seem to care. It was a relief not to be in the bookshop alone for a few hours. He couldn’t bring himself to leave but being there in the silence and feeling the angelic imprint that Aziraphale had caused slowly ebbing away made his essence feel torn open all over again.

“He’s not coming back you know. Not this time.” Crowley finally said, eyes sliding to where the body had been. It was bright in the shop so it was daytime but he couldn’t have said what day it was.

Anathema was almost immediately in front of him, crouching down to get to eye level and try to keep his focus for more than the infuriatingly short moments she’d coaxed from the demon thus far. “So what do you do now? What happens when an angel dies? And what do we do about the symbols?”

Crowley’s throat tightened up, a sting threatening at the backs of his eyes that he barely swallowed back on. “Nothing. You just… stop. Like you never were.” Crowley thought of Mesopotamia, of Rome, of Russia, China, Milton Keynes. He thought, trembling, of Eden and of the almost Eden that they’d started to cultivate  together in the last  few months.

“ _My dear boy, these plants are trembling.” Aziraphale sounded affronted, tutting as he looked over the third plant pot that Crowley had brought in through the door and unceremoniously walked up to the flat above the shop._

“ _And they’ll keep it up if they know what’s good for them.” He hissed, right up against the leaves of the plant he was currently holding. He nodded in satisfaction when it seemed to stand a little straighter and started looking for the perfect place to put it._

_Crowley had slowly started to move some of his day-to-day things into A. Z. Fell and Co. Bookshop, and the flat above, as the demon himself had started to spend an increasing amount of time there. A piece of clothing or two when he’d been too drunk and taken off some outer layers, couple of bottles of his favourite whiskey, the odd keepsake he’d miracled there to show off to Aziraphale and somehow forgotten to take back with him._

_One night he’d announced he couldn’t stand having to use the couch one more night and he would just bring his bed over. Aziraphale had a perfectly good room upstairs and Crowley spent more time there anyway. Aziraphale had smiled, knowing and pleased with himself but didn’t push the matter further. Crowley did still spend most of his nights in his own space._

_Admittedly it was everything Crowley had ever wanted to have the choice between spending a whole day messing with Londoners or being a general nuisance to his angel. Becoming the unofficial guard snake of the shop was an irony that was not lost on the demon. He was suddenly assisting Aziraphale in making sure that humans couldn’t get to the knowledge that they wanted. It almost felt like the angel had finally succeeded on apple tree duty._

“ _This one’s for you. So it’s going to bloom in a few days if it knows what’s good for it.” Crowley nonchalantly handed over a relatively small pot with a red tulip doing its best to put up a good show in front of its very temperamental gardener._

“ _Oh, my dear. I love you.” Aziraphale smiled, eyes perhaps just a little wet as he accepted the gift with all the gravity of a knighthood. Perhaps more, given how Aziraphale had taken his time in service as a knight._

_Crowley grinned, a pleased little flush at the back of his neck. “I think I like that. Say it again?”_

In all honesty Crowley already had a good idea of what he wanted to do, with Aziraphale no longer in this world and a weapon used in the elimination that was etched in both demonic and angelic symbols. He copied everything down for Anathema and sent her on her way home with a request that she find what she could from her side of things and to get her own life back to normal.

And one more, slightly odd request. Two days after she returned home to Jasmine cottage Anathema was delivered an order of a plastic water barrel and a tartan flask, alongside a note to take a little sample from the font every time she just so happened to be in or around a church.

Crowley himself kept the bullet. The angelic runes burned every time he accidentally brushed them when he studied it but he couldn’t bear to be parted from it. This was the most hated thing in his life. This tiny, insignificant thing had stolen the light out of his world and he couldn’t let it be anywhere but with him.

So Crowley studied, using the impressive arsenal that was Aziraphale’s bookshop. He felt the heaviness on his limbs still, felt the howling at the back of his mind. More than once he felt a wave of grief so strong that he had to stop his work to just curl in on himself and wait until he could breathe again.

Only once, he tried sleeping. Climbed up into the soft, dark tartan bed that still held some of the glow of the two of them twined together and shut his body down. Crowley didn’t always dream as such but he was a demon with an imagination and there was usually a flicker of something when he set himself to sleep. This time there was only darkness, like picking up the phone to find nothing on the other end. Like it was mocking the demon with the void at the other side of his consciousness where there should be another.

He woke to the phone in the shop trilling away and for a moment he waited for Aziraphale to shift beside him and complain about customers.

“ _Ah, finally awake I see. I don’t know how you can spend all of that time just wasted on nothing.” Aziraphale tutted, but he had his fingers threaded through Crowley’s hair as the demon slowly came to consciousness._

_Crowley smiled faintly and nuzzled himself against the angel’s soft, warm stomach. “And if it’s not wasted if I’m next to you?” He asked, voice moving before his brain caught up. The petting stopped and Aziraphale did his best to bodily pull Crowley into a hug as the snake squirmed and did everything in his power to not make eye contact, mortified at having said something so annoyingly sweet._

“ _Oh Crowley, you do know just what to say sometimes.” He could hear the beaming in Aziraphale’s voice._

“ _Shut up.” He growled and rolled his entire body, never mind just his eyes in irritation and embarrassment. It had the added bonus of pressing himself bodily against the other regardless of his struggles to get away from a hug._

_It also left him woefully exposed when Aziraphale leaned in and pressed a gentle but meaningful kiss into the hollow of his neck, tongue following behind and dragging a gasp from the demon’s throat._

_When the phone downstairs rang the pair let out matching groans of annoyance. “Perhaps we should leave that be. It could be a_ customer _and I’m certainly tied up with other things at the moment.” The angel pointed out meaningfully. “I only hope it isn’t going to be a distraction for too long...” He bit at his lower lip, eyes heated as he took in Crowley’s body beside him._

_Crowley sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. Alright.” The phone did not ring again._

He almost choked when cold reality set in and he remembered where and when he was. He immediately swore to himself that he would never sleep again.

Months passed of Crowley shrinking in on himself and Anathema just barely keeping him grounded with more research. She insisted he come to Tadfield occasionally to share information. It was the only time Crowley left the little bookshop since he’d arrived there to find Aziraphale gasping for his final breaths.

He took a cold kind of comfort in the fact that they were getting somewhere. The intentions, the blessing and curse, were easy enough to find. What was taking much longer was linking this to specific entities. Crowley had a good feeling it would be Hastur and Gabriel, both for obvious reasons. He was starting to get to a place where he didn’t care for the who as long as  _someone_ paid. They had all let this happen in one way or another, after all.

“Maybe you should take a rest from all of this. You look like crap, you know.” Anathema nudged him gently over a cup of earl grey and some scones at Jasmine cottage. In the other room there was the sound of something hitting the floor followed quickly by Newt shuffling around cursing.

Crowley shook his head, eyeing the plate of scones with an odd detachment from his body. There shouldn’t be so many left there. Filled with good clotted cream and a locally made jam. They shouldn’t be sat there untouched. But they were.  “ Can’t rest. Can’t sleep.  I tried sleeping but I didn’t dream of him. I’d sleep forever if I could see him there.”

There was a little intake of breath and Crowley couldn’t make himself look up and face the pity he knew would be directed at him.

He shook his head. “Got work to do now. Going to keep moving till I’m done.”

“I… Have you thought about maybe seeing if Adam could… I mean, I know that he’s not the same after everything that happened but there’s still something to him. You could...” Anathema gestured expansively to try and fill in the gaps. She was not used to words being so difficult but she’d never before faced an eternal being with a heart that by all rights a) shouldn’t exist and b) had been completely shredded.

For a moment Crowley’s jaw clenched, mouth pressing into a thin line, and Anathema considered which of her things she should try to save first if the other actually exploded.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” He said instead. Crowley had always been a strange kind of optimist and for Aziraphale he would stand up against Satan and all the armies of Heaven and Hell. Almost had, in fact. Asking for a helping hand from the ex-Antichrist was barely painful enough to even _consider_ dismissing as an idea.

T he Antichrist arrived with all of the usual fanfare (the ringing of bicycle bells and a heated debate over whether the weather was controlled by The Corporations or rain gathering druids).  Anathema, still an American at heart, had lemonade waiting for the ir arrival and as always Dog regarded Crowley with an odd kind of kinship. They had both come to Earth with nefarious purposes and ended up going native for want of love and the brilliance of humanity.

Crowley watched the Them with a kind of detachment he hadn’t felt around kids in a long time. They were so happy, their entire world here in Tadfield, and the  smiles on their chaotic little faces should have been giving Crowley gleeful ideas about how to mess with the residents of Tadfield.

There was a lull in the conversation and Crowley was suddenly aware of the Them whispering between themselves conspiratorially, likely egging each other on to ask a question of an adult that they suspected they’d been in trouble for. The demon left the cottage sharpish, the feeling of bile he didn’t really have rising in his throat as he sat down heavily on the little bench. Before long Adam was striding imperiously out of the house, shuffling awkwardly but his eyes fixed intently on Crowley.

“I wanted to ask… I don’t know if I want to know the answer.” The demon had been studiously not meeting Adam’s eyes and the second that he did he could feel the chill of something _other_ up the back of his neck.

_Adam turned to them at the airbase, finally seeming to notice them for the first time. Instantly, Crowley had the feeling that the Antichrist could see everything about him, his whole history stretched out in front of this boy to read in a moment. He felt peeled open and exposed and his hand itched to reach out and grasp for the grounding presence of Aziraphale, no matter the body that the angel was in._

_Then Adam’s gaze shifted to Aziraphale and Madame Tracy and despite the cold terror awash in his body at being lain bare he was already moving to circle his angel, to get between him and the Antichrist’s too intense gaze._

_Completely unexpectedly, the boy had declared “It’s not right, being two people, I reckon you better go back to being two separate people.” And with a thought Aziraphale was there again, whole and at his side. The places that they had gravitated to since the garden._

Like a mocking echo of the past Adam’s gaze bore through him, stripped bare, and he could  _feel_ the boy picking out all of his questions, his fears, and the truth of what he’d lost. 

_If I were human, and I lived seventy years, and I loved him for every single day of that, and I only just found the courage to love him, I’d have had two days of happiness. Two days. And he’s gone._

This time his hand did go out, desperately seeking an angel that was no longer there. Not even in the wrong body. Just empty air to his  right where Aziraphale had been almost since the dawn of time.

Adam blinked and the intensity was gone. He took a step back and Crowley dared to look at him again, hope flaring that he was making room for another body. Instead there was a deep kind of pity in his eyes, too old and too knowing for so young a face.

It left him breathless with pain and he thought for a moment that he wasn’t going to survive it. He might discorporate right there and then and have his essence dragged to Hell for them to torture until they found a restart for the apocalypse.

“I can tell you what you need to know though. Wasn’t right what they did. You shouldn’t really do it either, you know. Mum always says two wrongs don’t make a right.” Adam’s hands were in his pockets and he was leaning into Crowley, watching his eyes closely as though the glasses weren’t there at all.

Crowley swallowed around the lump suddenly in his throat. “I need to know.”

To a degree Crowley could understand Hastur’s (undoubtedly Hell’s)  part in this. He and Ligur had  actually been able to stand being around each other so he had enough to want some revenge for. And this was the sort of shit that was supposed to be right on their doorstep.

Of course, understanding and letting them get away with it were two very different things.

This time Crowley had been very particular about how he gathered his holy water. No more Shadwells, for one, and no more arsing around like it was some heist right where the angels could be watching. He needed to survive long enough to get up to Heaven afterwards. Whatever happened after that was in someone else’s hands.

When the month was up Crowley arranged for a few very discreet deliveries to a building just around the corner from the transfer point to Heaven and Hell. He filled up his industrial sized weed sprayer and got it settled onto his back with slow, deep breaths. Things felt like they were speeding up towards some inevitable conclusion and Crowley still wasn’t completely certain what that would be.  Crowley wasn’t afraid of death, not when the one he’d held into for so long was pointedly missing. What he feared was what he couldn’t know. Too late now.

He  carefully brought in the three water barrels  stacked on a pallet truck,  as always walking just enough like he owned the place that no one challenged him on it.  One by one he kicked the barrels down the escalator that very much only went up and took a single step on himself, mouth dry but pulse surprisingly steady as he listened for the bouncing and rolling. For confused voices. He stepped steadily backwards the whole time, keeping in the same spot and watching the floor the entire time.

Hell had always been packed in close, always brushing shoulders with someone you couldn’t stand when you tried to get anywhere. In the buzzing fluorescent light Crowley caught the edge of his last barrel rolling off the end.  And activated a small trigger that tore the barrels open.

He’d witnessed floods before. Witnessed the Great Flood and still remembered the horror of realising who was going to get caught up in the deluge. He wondered if She had felt as detached from it all as he felt now, like he’d somehow been disconnected from his corporation. He wished hearing the hissing and carnage below was enough to make him feel  _something_ but he couldn’t even muster grim satisfaction. Aziraphale was gone, and both sides could burn but that wouldn’t bring him back.

As he mounted the stairway to Heaven, now electrified and express and certainly barred for entry from demons who would in no way have witnessed how an angel would get through, he wondered how long the detachment would last.

He could already feel  _something_ finally moving inside of him.  Heading back to the oldest home of his. That he’d sauntered away from because he asked too many questions to stay. That had alienated his angel. That had twice tried to erase his shining, brilliant existence. That had eventually succeeded.

_I love you. I love you. I was too late but I love you._

The demon Crowley had barely reached the top before there were angels alert and moving towards him. He felt the heat gathering around him, the warning heat of the power he was summoning, the sharp burn of the very holy ground at his feet. None of it touched the hollow place they’d left when they took Aziraphale from him.

He raised the spray nozzle, backpack full of fuel, and ignited it to Hellfire as he started spraying toward the first angel that moved towards him. The screaming started. And Crowley screamed back.

_Six thousand years of something bigger than he’d ever hoped for. It culminated in lunch at The Ritz, a promise for a time that Crowley wouldn’t be too fast and Aziraphale wouldn’t be so scared fulfilled at last._

_Surprisingly enough Crowley did not actually slow down. If anything he became an intolerable nuisance for Aziraphale who positively glowed every time the demon draped himself over his angel. He set to taking every opportunity to brush hands, pass too close and hold his gaze for too long now that they were no longer hiding. Things were finally where they were meant to be._

** You took him from me. You took him and you  _left me here_ . **

_ Soft hands  resting on his hips, a warm body a little bit too close for propriety and the slow sway of their bodies  down paths  through stacks of books that were barely wide enough to be navigated this way. Demons danced in a way specifically designed for the maximum amount of mortification across the years. Angels didn’t dance at all, apart from one single angel who learned one single dance in his millennia of existence. _

_ Crowley had convinced the other that even without any natural rhythm they were probably just human enough for this dancing. For an embrace that let him feel Aziraphale’s superfluous heartbeat and a sway that was led entirely by that slow, steady thump as  the timing of  their hearts lined up. _

_ Music played from a gramophone in the back. Glen Miller. Definitely one of Hell’s, if just for the brown jug. Crowley couldn’t even find it in him to complain in the warmth of arms that felt like home,  the feel of being held enough to quiet the anxiety and the questioning that lived constantly at his core. _

“ _Say it again?”_

_ He felt Aziraphale’s lips twitching up into a smile as he leaned in as though to whisper a secret. “I love you.” _

** You let this happen, You always let this happen to the good ones and You can get fucked if these aren’t the demons. He was the  _only_ good thing. Aziraphale should have been safe here with these people. ** The words might be in his screaming or only in the howling in his brain but as always the demon Crowley, who never learned a lesson in his life, is crying out to a God who won’t answer him.

He just wanted to get  _ somebody _ . He wanted them to know the  _ cost _ of it. They wouldn’t of course, couldn’t, none of them could love. Not in the way that he and Aziraphale had loved. The wouldn’t feel it but they would know what it looked like. The hollow place in his heart, carved out callously. An imperfect match to the hollow gaps he would leave in their ranks.

By the time the fuel ran out and the haze had left his mind Crowley was pressed onto his knees by the trembling arms of angels. He  was falling apart, coming loose at the seams with almost no more energy left in him and his body wasn’t doing much better. He probably hadn’t been doing much to defend himself.

The cautious crowd around him pulled back a little enough for the archangels to come through. He looked dead set to Gabriel, who Aziraphale had named. Gabriel, whose casual callousness had always made Aziraphale feel Other. He’d take any of them right now, any of them to die with his love’s name on his lips.

Time was short. Devastatingly short, like a missed beat in a symphony that couldn’t catch up to itself any more. Out of step and unravelling. Discordant notes too loud and too much wailing in his mind. But he was almost there. Whatever came, he was almost there.

Gabriel stepped forward and Crowley grinned, a thin, sick thing that was more a baring of fangs. Michael placed a firm warning hand on her brother’s shoulder, pulling him back just slightly.

“The demon Crowley.” Michael’s eyes were as bright as her words were dark, both thrumming with a power that made his skin feel stretched.

“He called for you while she was killing him. Still thought you might be better than that.” Crowley accused, eyes still on Gabriel with no clue if he was lying or not. The strongest call had been, and always would be, to Crowley.

Gabriel raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow but didn’t seem particularly impressed with the information, jaw going slightly tight. “What are you even-”

“It makes no difference.” Michael cut across the other archangel. “Demons speak in nothing but lies and temptations anyway and none of it will matter once he’s dead.” She turned to Crowley and leaned in just a little, voice a whisper that still carried to him over the short distance that separated them. So close. “Though maybe you’d prefer to live with it a little longer. Held here.”

Crowley felt his chest lurch weakly, both fear and triumph and none of it even a spark in the vacuum inside of him. “I love him. Still. Always.” He announced, as loudly and defiantly as he could against the hosts of Heaven. He bit down on the pill in his mouth, feeling a sickening liquid rolling over his tongue. He pulled at the small amount of power he’d reserved.

Michael only saw him moving to spit, face contorting in disgust as she started to move, pre-empting the demon.

She had not expected him to breathe hellfire. He thought that hearing the archangel scream would bring him some measure of resolution but he only felt more empty and more tired as Michael screamed, twisted and thrust a sword into his open, roaring mouth.

The pain was immediate and searing. The holiness was burning him from the inside as surely as the hellfire had been burning Michael. He stopped breathing out, choking on the holy matter piercing his mouth, but he willed his eyes to clear as he focussed on Michael whose flesh was tearing away from the holy essence underneath. He could see into the core of her now.

The pain grew, though being extinguished in this way couldn’t be hurting any more than it had for Aziraphale. His beautiful, brilliant, too-kind, bastard angel. Whether the other was somewhere awaiting him or this wiped reality of both of them, he didn’t care. Whe rever Aziraphale had gone he was following. It would be enough.

H e smiled, and as his sight faded away he thought he saw the archangel’s essence trembling.

If there was a ‘their side’ still, he was going home to it.

_Say it again. One more time. Could you say that thing again? Again._

“Always. I love you.”


End file.
